The best thing about Jamie breaking up with Autumn is that I don’t have to worry about him pressuring her into becoming a teacher.
Autumn would be miserable as a teacher. I know this because my mom is a teacher, and I see the sacrifices Mom makes because she loves teaching. Autumn would not love teaching. She might not hate it, but I know it would never be a passion. Writing is her passion. Autumn would grow to resent her students because they would take her away from writing. I can see so clearly how she would feel trapped.
When she changed her plans and started looking at colleges with creative writing majors, I was relieved, but not only because I thought she would be happier. I had started to wonder if maybe I didn’t know Autumn as well as I thought, that maybe she did want to be a teacher. But once she had switched back to envisioning a writing career for herself, it reconfirmed that I knew who she was deep down inside.
I don’t think Jamie ever understood Autumn.
Jamie.
I remember punching the wall in my room after graduation when I thought she was waiting for him to whisk her off to make love somewhere romantic.
Autumn had loved reading Wuthering Heights in English class junior year. She always finished books before the rest of the class, ignoring the reading schedule. Autumn had gone on and on about Heathcliff’s passion during class discussions, often infuriating our classmates by spoiling the plot because she forgot the rest of us hadn’t finished the book yet.
I sat behind her in that class and stared at the back of her head as I hung on her every word. I’d tried to like it too. Wuthering Heights is about childhood friends in love. I wanted the plot to reveal that Autumn and I were meant to be together. But all I could see was how Heathcliff’s obsession with Cathy had turned him into the worst version of himself.
So after I punched the wall all those weeks ago, I rubbed my bruised knuckles, checked the wall for divots, and thought, There’s some Heathcliff passion for you, Autumn. Now Jamie can get you pregnant, and I’ll give myself a concussion on a tree when you go into labor.
Autumn brings out the worst in me, and it’s not her fault.
Jack thinks it is though.
I owe it to him—my only other real friend, if I’m being honest with myself—to consider what he said to me when he left today: Either Autumn and I are the two stupidest people in the world who somehow don’t realize we’re in love with each other, or she’s fucking with me.
I don’t know where to begin with that though. It’s like he told me to consider the possibility that she murdered someone.
Autumn has her flaws. She’s offhandedly arrogant about her looks. She lacks tenacity or drive for anything that isn’t reading or writing. When she’s in a bad mood, you must tread carefully. She can, in the blink of an eye, casually strike with a few cruel words that get right to the heart of your insecurities.
But she almost always apologizes quickly. She’ll flinch after the words leave her mouth and tell you she’s sorry. I’m not saying it’s okay. It happens mostly when she’s depressed, and if her mom is any indication, depression is going to be a lifelong thing for her. I’m simply saying that Autumn’s base motivations are defensive, not cruel.
If Autumn knows I adore her, what would she get from torturing me with her presence all summer? She’s not insecure about her looks. If she wanted attention from a guy, she could…go somewhere public? And sit with a book until someone sat down next to her? It wouldn’t take long.
The girls had always insisted that Autumn’s friends were our rivals, and though Jack and I agreed Jamie was an obnoxious showboat, we didn’t see this competition with them that they did.
Could Autumn have seen it that way though? Autumn has never liked Sylvie in particular. She’s never said so to me, but it’s clear.
Sylvie has never liked Autumn. She has said so to me clearly.
Would Autumn purposely blow air over the coals of my long-burning love for her to torture Sylvie? Could her heartbreak over Jamie be so deep that she’d take pleasure in hurting Sylvie through me?
It doesn’t sound right, doesn’t sound like the Autumn I love, but it sounds more likely than any theory of Autumn simply wanting to hurt me.
Autumn knows I have an old crush on her. Maybe, maybe, maybe, Jack is a little bit right, and she is messing with my head to mess with Sylvie?
It seems too vicious for Autumn.
But I promised Jack that I would think about it, and I have.
I’ve been lying here with my thriller open on my chest staring at the ceiling.